


Mark

by Wicked_Seraph



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, M/M, Omega Verse, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 08:47:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17118176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wicked_Seraph/pseuds/Wicked_Seraph
Summary: Before he’d had his first heat, Ash had expected gentle, rolling waves of desire that were easily subdued or sublimated. Ash now found himself desperately wishing he had thought to steal a bottle for himself.[Completed as part of the #BFSecretSanta gift exchange on Twitter. I was given multiple pairings and told -- and I quote -- "to go all out". I hope this is an acceptable offering.





	Mark

The only “good” thing about his years spent as Dino’s personal pet was the steady regimen of suppressants. Only one man in the world knew what Ash was; the knowledge seemed to excite him. Ash had lost track of the number of times Dino had looked over him smugly, remarking on the seller’s stupidity “for not recognizing an omega when he saw one”. 

“He’d be livid if he knew how much he undersold you for,” he’d once said, retying his robe while leaving Ash’s restraints secured. 

“Is that so.”

Dino had left his laptop on again; Ash spent the better part of Dino’s visit memorizing the pattern of keystrokes he had used to log in. 

If Dino found Ash’s nonchalance suspicious, he said nothing. The maid, like clockwork, arrived fifteen minutes after Dino had left the room, leaving two suppressant pills on the nightstand before untying Ash’s restraints. Ash knew she was contractually obligated not to speak to or acknowledge him, but all the same he appreciated what small things she did that she could get away with: avoiding acrylic nails so they wouldn’t scratch his skin when she untied the ropes, or avoiding certain perfumes that she knew bothered him. The glass of water was new, however, and he wondered how much meticulous planning it had taken to sneak past the guards.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. It hurt to try to smile, but she deserved at least that much.

* * *

Ash’s bedsheets were comprised of some absurdly-high thread count of Egyptian cotton, and all he could think about was how every single strand felt like nails against his flesh.

Before he’d had his first heat, Ash had expected gentle, rolling waves of desire that were easily subdued or sublimated. He had expected that he could wrap his fingers around a handgun and pretend that each bullet piercing the paper silhouette target was his own weakness being expelled. The suppressants had seemed unnecessary and, like everything Dino did, absurd. 

Ash now found himself desperately wishing he had thought to steal a bottle for himself.

“Heat” did not properly describe the agonizing need that licked at every nerve in his body; it felt like his own weakness was immolating him from the inside out, and it was all he could do not to take himself in hand for the umpteenth time to try in vain to quiet the roaring choir in his blood.

He had clenched his eyes shut and allowed himself to imagine all the different ways an alpha might soothe the ache, and all of them left him feeling nauseous and pale. He knew what alphas were like and shuddered to think about the different flavors of pain he would have experienced if they’d known he was an omega. Even being perceived as a “dull, unremarkable beta” had served as a sufficient catalyst for them.

His body screamed for an alpha, all the while remembering nothing but the pain they’d brought him. 

_How cruel,_ he thought mirthlessly _, that my own body would want something like this._

Ash had ordered his lieutenant and subordinates to go nowhere near his apartment for the coming week. He wasn’t sure how long, exactly, a heat was supposed to last — three days to a week, if the books he’d read were accurate. He knew from the dizzy restlessness (he refused to call it “desire”) coursing through him that he had less than a day before his body would betray him and render him useless. 

“I think I’m coming down with something,” he said, hoping that the faint trembling in his voice sounded like nausea rather than another poisonous spasm of heat churning in his stomach. “I just need to rest.”

“R-right, Boss,” Alex had said, his brow knit in clear worry. “What about Eiji?”

Ash thought for a moment, forcing himself to swallow. Alex was an alpha, and it was becoming  hard  to think past how his scent was mouth-watering, how much his body keened for it. His stomach filled with lead as he realized that he was no longer on suppressants; it was impossible for Alex — for any of the other alphas in his gang — to not smell him. He could practically feel it coming off of him in waves.

Alex’s muscles were abnormally tense, his face writ with a pained expression of forced nonchalance. 

He was correct. Alex could smell him. He couldn’t begin to guess what this had to do with Eiji.

“What about him?”

Alex paused for a moment.

“It’s not my place to say,” he hedged, taking a step back closer to the cracked doorway. Alex’s scent immediately became weaker, and Ash noted gratefully that the gesture wasn’t to put distance between them, but to allow the A/C to direct his scent through the doorway and away from Ash.

“He's safer with me,” Ash muttered, bringing his knees to his chest. Alex’s smile wasn’t humorless, but it was apparent that something about Ash’s statement had struck him as ironic 

“Alright. Eiji will stay with you. We’ll… keep a wide berth. Let us know if you need something.”

Ash smiled weakly.

“Thank you, Alex. From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate it.”

“What’s with all the cheesy shit? You’re freakin’ me out, man!”

Ash couldn’t help but laugh along with Alex as he shut the door behind him.

Ash took a deep breath, curling up in bed and willing himself to endure through another wave of mingled nausea and lust.

Seven days.

He could do this.

* * *

“Ash! I brought sou—”

Ash had fallen asleep, but was immediately dragged from his slumber by the rich, dangerous scent that had filled the apartment. 

Jasmine. Rose. Sandlewood. Wrinkled bedsheets. Sweat. Anise. Come.

A thousand images flooded his mind in an attempt to describe it, to reduce it to words and descriptions so he focus on anything other than how it had turned his deep, steady breaths into ragged gasps.

He looked towards the entrance of the apartment, finding Eiji standing stock-still in front of the closed front door with a dropped styrofoam container leaking its contents near his feet.

Eiji’s eyes were wide and filled with an unreadable emotion. 

_Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck._

Ash’s heart pounded beneath his ribs, his nerves crackling with heat and electricity. He wasn’t sure what he looked like right now, but hoped that he had enough strength to make the smile on his face look convincing.

“Sorry I s-surprised you, Eiji. Thanks for the soup, but I’m a little si—”

“Are you alright, Ash?”

Eiji, seeming inhumanly fast, bounded across the apartment and knelt beside Ash’s bed. If there was any doubt as to the source of the scent, it was erased immediately as Eiji’s fragrance almost suffocated him in such proximity — or, it would have, had there not been something strangely soothing about it. The chaotic lust that boiled within him seemed to transform into something gentler, though no less potent. 

"I’m… just a little sick,” Ash murmured quietly, realizing how fruitless the lie was the moment it left his lips. If Alex could smell him earlier, from all the way across the apartment, then there was no way that Eiji couldn’t mere inches from him. 

It was interesting, Ash noted, how different each alpha smelled. Years spent on suppressants meant that he neither emitted nor detected pheromones — though, he learned recently, the effect was far from permanent. He merely knew who alphas were by their own word, and those that frequented Club Cod had no qualms about letting their puffed-out chests and bravado speak for them. Ash hadn’t known anything about the respective members of his own gang until a few days prior, when he’d begun to correctly suspect that his sudden hypersensitivity to body odor was the precursor to an oncoming heat. 

It had been a blessing in disguise, he thought — the hierarchy of his gang was comprised of a mixture of different secondary sexes, and his own lack of a scent had lead others to conclude that he himself was an indifferent beta. It had been humbling to see how few of his assumptions about who was and was not an alpha had been correct.

Not once had he ever considered what Eiji was.

The suggestive, lush scent that called to him like a siren left little room for doubt. 

“How long?” Eiji asked quietly, pouring Ash a glass of water from the pitcher on his nightstand.

“H-heats… and ruts… both last a week,” Ash stammered, hands trembling around the glass such that the water inside it threatened to spill out. Eiji wrapped his hands around Ash’s gently, barely touching his skin but enough to stabilize the glass as Ash brought it to his lips. He gulped the water down, wondering how he hadn’t noticed how dry his throat had become. 

“And yours is just starting?”

“Yes.”

“You have not had one before, have you?”

Ash looked away. The pity in Eiji’s expression was unbearable, filled with kindness yet still simmering with a heated curiosity he knew Eiji could not help.

“I haven’t. I was always on suppressants. I was fucking stupid and didn’t bring them with me so now I’m… like this,” he said, gesturing fruitlessly to his own pale, trembling figure, covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

“You’re strong, Ash. You will get through this.”

Ash chuckled darkly.

“You have no idea what a heat is like, do you?”

Eiji frowned, his cheeks coloring vividly.

“No, because… my type… we don’t have ‘heats’. But we do have something similar. I understand better than you think I do.”

“Similar how?”

Ash knew it was cruel to make Eiji say it, to give form and voice to the nebulous, violent lust that plagued them but once a year. Eiji, to his surprise, looked him dead in the eye, the steel in his expression refusing to allow Ash to look away.

“It’s painful — very, very painful. It’s desire that does not care about anything other than being fed. It’s violent and suffocating.”

Eiji bit his lip, looking away as though remembering something horrific; Ash immediately regretted asking.

“I wish I had suppressants for them. I don’t like who I become during… those times.”

“I know you’d never hurt someone, though. You’re too good to let it control you like that,” Ash said, offering an apologetic smile. He knew that even someone like Eiji had his limits, and that his own scent was likely pushing Eiji towards them. Eiji returned the smile; his breathing was unnaturally calm and even in a way that meant it was intentional, his scent seeming more potent. Eiji’s cheeks were flushed and suddenly the pieces fell into place.

Goddamnit.

_Heats trigger ruts. How the hell could I have been so stupid?_

“Even so. That’s why I know how much pain you’re in and… why you might not want me here,” Eiji said, rising to his feet. Every cell in Ash’s body shrieked in protest, and before he could stop himself he reached towards Eiji’s back, his voice barely able to croak out a soft “no”.

“Eiji… please. Please don’t go.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

Eiji returned to the side of the bed, dragging a chair with him and settling into it near the foot of Ash’s bed. Eiji’s scent felt like a thousand fingers caressing his skin; Ash clenched his eyes shut and swallowed a low moan, ignoring the soft wave of pleasure that rolled through him.

“I… I don’t know what I want,” Ash whispered. 

“I hate being like this. I hate it. I hate making you go through the same thing because I was too stupid to realize what it would do to you. Just. I fucking hate this.”

Eiji offered a small smile; Ash could tell that he was burying his instinctive urge to reach out and rub his back or place an arm around him. The distance between them was dense with need, almost palpable like midsummer humidity.

“Leave the apologizing for us Japanese, okay? It’s not your fault. You’re strong,” he repeated. "I’ll do my best to be strong for you. You know that I would do anything for you, Ash.”

“Eiji…”

“Sleep," he said, his voice gentle but firm. "You must be tired. These… ‘cycles’ are hard even when you’re well-rested. I’m going to go shower. Let me know if you need anything.”

With that Eiji rose from his chair and headed towards the bathroom.

Eiji’s scent lingered where he’d sat. Ash’s thoughts were on the figure several feet away, behind a locked door and ventilation fan, diligently attempting to scrub away and erase his own scent. Ash imagined the rippling muscles covered in suds and the flawless dips and curves of his figure, reminiscent of Greek statues and paintings. For all Eiji’s gentleness, it was easy to forget that the figure shrouded in soft cashmere sweaters and dress slacks was that of an athlete rather than a poet.

He imagined slender fingers and full lips, broad shoulders and strong arms. He thought of dark hair between his fingers and eyes as black as night locked with his. 

Ash’s heat had brought these details to the forefront. His mouth watered; his body sang with want. Before he could stop himself, his hand arced towards the locus of his surging lust, aching and painfully hard in his grasp; even dulled by the barrier of his pajama bottoms, simply touching it had sent a thrill up his spine, and he had to bite down on the other hand to stifle a moan.

One tentative stroke became two became four, his thoughts clouding over in a blissful haze as his heat screamed for an outlet. It was too easy to pretend that someone else’s hand was wrapped around him, that the strange, sugary smell was perfume or incense rather than his own body begging to be —.

_Look at him. He’s practically begging for it._

Ash’s hand stilled. The turbulent entropy clawing at him did not.

“Ash, would you like to —”

Eiji stepped out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist; his hair was still damp, an occasional droplet dripping onto his chest.

The shower had done nothing to dull Eiji’s scent; if anything, it permeated the steam billowing from behind him, the force it like a punch in Ash’s gut. He doubled over, covering his mouth and forcing himself to steady his breathing.

“I’m… I’m not myself right now, Eiji,” Ash stammered, a self-loathing smile painting his expression. “Or maybe I’m exactly the person everyone assumed I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“The kinds of things they say about people like me,” Ash said. He didn’t elaborate, but the silent, contemplative curve of Eiji’s lips suggested that he understood what Ash couldn’t bring himself to say.

“This is different. People will say anything to justify hurting someone else; what is happening to you now does not make what they said back then true,” Eiji said softly, grabbing a towel from the linen closet. His movements were cautious and measured; the occasional tremble in his footsteps betrayed his attempts at concealing his own internal struggle.

Eiji was doing his damnedest to be comforting, but wave after wave of his scent was beginning to chip away at Ash’s self-control, thin as rice paper. Eiji was dangerous and beautiful and fragrant, and as he sat at the foot of Ash’s bed he swore that the warmth that radiated from his body was tangible.

“You’re beautiful,” Ash blurted out, hating the strange huskiness that had seeped into his voice. It was his voice, his words, but he’d never have willingly said them in a way that sounded unquestionably erotic.

The books he’d read had warned that this — “a distinct shift in voice pitch,” as they phrased it — was akin to a warning bell that an omega was in heat. There was no way that Eiji did not know — alphas were warned from the moment their secondary sex was revealed to steer clear of an omega whose voice was noticeably different, especially those who had been triggered into entering a rut by mere proximity.

_Unless, of course, you’re willing to participate._

Ash tried not to think about the unspoken caveat.

Ash had memorized the list of things that signaled an oncoming heat: potent scent, a secondary “sweet” smell, a shift in voice pitch, culminating in changes in behavior and the appearance of slick. He knew without looking what the sweet smell from earlier meant.

“Eiji, please. I’m not myself right now. I don’t want you seeing me like this,” Ash said, the words clipped and guttural, as though he were gargling rocks.

“You are always Ash to me,” Eiji said, placing a tentative hand on Ash’s cheek. Eiji’s skin was warm and soft against his skin, and Ash couldn’t help but lean into the touch. Even the briefest of touch was a welcome balm, and Ash almost sobbed with relief.

“But—”

“I feel it, too,” Eiji whispered. “If you want me to… I can try to help. It doesn’t have to be anything else but that. I will do anything for you, Ash — but only if you want me to.”

“I wish it wasn’t like this. But… I want—”

Ash wasn’t sure. He wanted relief and he wanted dignity. He wanted gentleness and violence and searing heat, tenderness and bitterness and the unnameable warmth that suffused him whenever Eiji was near. He wanted a safe distance from Eiji, to avoid contaminating him with the vileness that had rendered him breathless and trembling with lust. And yet. And yet.

The whispering blackness within him wanted Eiji to drown with him. He could smell the desire, no less potent, that ran through Eiji’s veins; Eiji made him want things that lingered only in half-formed thoughts and the feverish afterimage of a shame-ridden climax. His heat, Eiji’s rut — neither of those things had created these feelings, but rather made them impossible to ignore. 

Eiji stroked his cheek with his thumb — only once. Eiji’s smile was gentle, but his eyes burned.

“I want, too.”

Eiji knelt beside Ash, wrapping his other arm around him and bringing him closer to his chest in a hesitant embrace. Ash allowed himself to be drawn in, to drink in Eiji’s body heat and fragrance. He buried his face in the crook of Eiji’s neck, taking a deep, steadying breath.

“You’re so warm, Eiji,” he sighed, his voice taking on an unfamiliar timbre. He had expected nerves, but something about Eiji’s presence was soothing. Being close to him like this, knowing that he would be far closer soon — the notion of it felt almost inevitable, but filled him with a sense of relief rather than anxiety. It felt natural, easier than breathing.

“So are you,” Eiji said, his hand trailing along Ash’s jaw and settling under his chin. Their faces were mere inches apart; he could feel the tension in Eiji’s body, as well as the unspoken question in the lingering space between their lips. 

Ash answered by closing it, bringing their mouths together.

It felt like a dam broke within him; the heat that he had struggled to keep at bay roared in his veins, igniting every nerve in his body. He couldn’t stopper the low moan of approval in the back of his throat. 

Eiji’s mouth was warm and demanding against his, returning every lick and nip that Ash gave with one of his own. Eiji’s tongue licked at what seemed like every inch of his lips, his own tongue, with a fervor that shocked him — sweet Eiji who had replied “of course not” when asked if he’d ever had a girlfriend, laying claim to his mouth as though it were only thing in the world that mattered.

“You’re beautiful, Ash,” Eiji whispered reverently, lips grazing his neck before pressing a kiss tentatively against it.

“And you’re a sap,” Ash choked out, trembling as Eiji bit gently into his skin, sucking and nipping in a way that left little doubt that it would be crimson soon. “I take it back, you’re a brat.”

Eiji didn’t reply, distracted with tasting every inch of Ash’s neck. Ash couldn’t stop the high, keening cries that poured forth.

At some point Ash registered vaguely that he had leaned so far back as to lie flat against the bed, Eiji descending with him, unable to tear his lips away. Eiji’s body was flush against his, fingers laced with his own; the towel that had been wrapped modestly around his waist lay uselessly on the floor. He could feel Eiji’s arousal press against his thigh; the realization sent a shudder along his spine. He knew his own cock was aching — had been for what felt like an eternity — and that his body had begun producing slick; his scent, Eiji’s scent, and the telltale sweetness of slick had mingled into an aroma that would have left no doubt as to what transpired.

“Is that—?”

One of Eiji’s hands unwound from his fingers, stroking along the waistband of Ash’s pants curiously.

Ash swallowed, unable to ignore the raw curiosity in Eiji’s voice.

“May I?”

Ash nodded, and Eiji’s fingers trailed delicately towards Ash’s entrance. Ash knew what he would find: wet heat, a body that eagerly accepted whatever was proffered with no resistance. One of Eiji’s fingers circled the rim. Ash’s body crackled with need, screaming for whatever Eiji offered.

“Eiji, please—!”

Eiji dipped in a finger, sighing in awe under his breath as Ash’s body welcomed it. As expected, the only tension Ash felt was his lust demanding more. Eiji glanced at him, waiting for a nod before adding more fingers. He pumped them experimentally, agonizingly slow; Ash swore he could feel the scarred knuckles on Eiji’s hands, could feel his very cells cry out in protest when Eiji withdrew. 

“You’re so wet, Ash. Your body is swallowing me up.”

Ash had never heard Eiji like this, his voice a low, crooning purr simmering with raw desire. Ash had always hated dark things, but he found it impossible to be anything but captivated by Eiji’s dark eyes, seemingly burning his own self-control into cinders. He couldn’t speak, the rolling undulations of heat becoming violent, crashing waves lapping at his sanity.

“Don’t tease me, I’m—”

“I’m not teasing. You really are swallowing me up. Can’t you feel it?”

Eiji smirked at him, fingers stroking slowly and intently at a region that sent white-hot sparks throughout Ash’s entire body. Ash yelped in mingled pleasure and surprise; he suspected that the almost painful pleasure would have ordinarily been enough to send him over the edge, but his heat demanded more.

Ash writhed beneath Eiji, hands and hips maneuvering restlessly until his waistband hung near his ankles and Eiji’s cock was lined up against his entrance. Eiji’s eyes went wide; Ash couldn’t help but sneer in reply.

“Doesn’t feel nice to be teased, does it?” he whispered, licking the shell of Eiji’s ear and relishing Eiji’s small groan, hips bucking dangerously. To his credit, Eiji looked only the slightest bit contrite, even in spite of the flush that covered his face and chest. 

"You… I… Ash…”

Eiji’s voice trembled with a deluge of words struggling to find an exit. Words like “love” and “need” sounded trite and insincere, and Ash suspected that Eiji felt similarly, preferring to let contrived declarations remain voiceless. He smiled, bringing his lips to Eiji’s once more and hoping that somewhere in the violent mesh of lips and teeth lay his reply.

_I do, too._

“Can I…?”

“Please.”

Eiji pressed forward, and Ash felt himself filled with sweet heat, both of them gasping at the sheer pleasure of the union. Ash’s body was welcoming, slick and hot beneath Eiji’s, with just enough friction where their bodies met to set both of their nerves ablaze. Eiji bottomed out, hips flush against Ash’s, and remained still, seemingly struggling to even breathe.

“Does it hurt?”

Ash shook his head, panting wildly and resisting the urge to cant his hips and chase after more delicious friction.

“No, feels good,” Ash said, voice ragged. "Need more.”

His name fell from Eiji’s lips, somewhere between a sigh and a moan. Eiji withdrew before closing the gap between their bodies once more, wringing a strangled cry of pleasure from both of them. Eiji’s thrusts were hard and unyielding, reminding Ash vividly that the muscles usually hidden in cardigans and gentle fabrics hadn’t lost their strength. Eiji’s cock was far from the largest he’d taken, but he had never felt himself coming undone so quickly and completely; he seemed to instinctively know when to shift the angle of his hips, how to find a new focal point that painted Ash’s cries in a different, desperate hue. Eiji brought his mouth to Ash’s desperately, though they were able to do little more than moan against one another’s lips.

Every muscle in Eiji’s body seemed to strain against impulse; Ash could feel his own climax approaching with a sense of growing inevitability. Ash had always prided himself on rationality; it was unnerving to feel his entire being hyperfocused on the overwhelming lust that had consumed him, unable to focus on anything other than the points where he and Eiji’s bodies were joined, seeming to melt together. 

“Fuck, Ash, you feel perfect,” Eiji whispered, nipping at Ash’s neck helplessly as he tried with increasing futility to delay his release. 

Something about hearing Eiji say something so filthy, clearly nearing his limits, snapped the last few threads of Ash’s restraint. Ash wrapped his legs around Eiji’s waist, bringing his lips to Eiji’s ear.

“Mark me, Eiji,” he begged, exposing the column of his throat. Eiji looked down at him, eyes swimming with countless emotions that were unnameable but understood and shared.

Eiji bit down on Ash’s neck as the speed of this thrusts increased, skin breaking as Eiji almost sobbed. Marking someone while in the throes of a rut was unbearable pleasure for an alpha, almost agonizing in its intensity; nothing in his books had ever said how it felt for the one being marked, about how he would feel the feverish racing of Eiji’s heart at the bite, nor about how keenly he would feel Eiji’s and his own pleasure become indistinguishable from one another. Ash could feel how Eiji’s body flared with heat, how he trembled with the force of his own release as he cried out Ash’s name. 

Ash’s self-control crumbled as he succumbed to his own need, filled with Eiji’s lust, unable to think about anything other than Eiji in him and around him, seemingly woven into every fiber of his conscious. His whole being seemed to be claimed by him; when Ash’s body sang with relief, it was Eiji’s name that fell from his lips as a delirious sigh.

* * *

 Ash had read about many things in the books he rented from the library when, more than anything, he need to be left to his thoughts.

He had read about the secondary sexes and their respective cycles; he had read about infertility in those who spent years under the effects of suppressants, about how rarely these individuals found companions with such “compromised physiology”.

He had also read about “marking" — something that had always seemed barbaric and possessive, crude in its implications. Ash had always found such marks disgusting remnants of a domineering alpha and an omega too stupid to know better. 

Ash idly ran a finger along the bloom of crimson along his neck, its thin, ivy-like tendrils proof that it was a mark rather than a mere “love bite”. He thought of Eiji, his eyes gentle and filled with unbearable warmth, at how perfect it had felt to curl against him and allow their mirrored heartbeats to lull them to sleep. He thought of how, in spite of his fears, nothing had changed between them — Eiji still bristled when Ash teased him, still made rancid, stinking health food, and still flinched at the piles of mustard Ash dumped on his own. Eiji still hated handguns and loved photography. Eiji still peppered Ash’s skin with kisses when they made love, still devoured his pleasure when they both fell into their respective cycles; the difference between the two was inconsequential. 

Perhaps, he mused, the only thing that had changed was him.


End file.
